Destruction of Armenianness of Artsakh is a historical and political necessity for Azerbaijan

The rhetoric of the President of Azerbaijan I. Aliyev, particularly, the statements about the disintegration of state institutions in Artsakh, are not new in the context of Azerbaijani politics. Since the Soviet times, Azerbaijan has conducted and currently continues to conduct a policy of destruction of Armenianness in Artsakh. This policy has been particularly active since 1930s, within the framework of the so-called ‘korenization’ policy. Soviet korenization in the case of Azerbaijan created institutions: Academy of Sciences, Turkic Studies Centers, Theories about History. Institutions created processes, with the end result of forming a mobilization nation. From an anthropological point of view, the important existential basis of a mobilized nation is the creation of history. Contrary to Azerbaijan, which was just on the way to creating these institutions, they already existed in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO): the territory as a compact collective existed, history, language, cultural continuity, educational centers existed, in terms of statehood, the institutional memory about the merits of khamsa was present. There was also an important fact, that both during the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920) and during the first years of the Soviet Union, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were not defeated.  It should be noted that NKAO is not an entity created by the will of the Armenians living there, but is a coercion. Therefore, on the one hand, the above-mentioned mobilization should be supposed to be pro-Azerbaijani, since an attempt is being made to establish the Azerbaijani nation, on the other hand, it is condemned to be anti-Armenian and anti-Artsakh, since by creating institutions, Azerbaijanis try to enter into competition with already existing institutions. Secondly, there is a hierarchical difference: it was “embarrassing” for the Azerbaijanis to compete and lose to a lower hierarchically subordinate entity, Nagorno-Karabakh, during the USSR years. What Azerbaijan has done and is doing is a series of actions aimed at making political nation. The creation or rather the appropriation of culture and history has been a continuous chain of actions by Azerbaijan since Soviet times, as it was an imperative requirement for Baku, alongside Iran, Georgia and Armenia, neighbors with a rich history and culture in the region. Cultural appropriation for Azerbaijan is done at the expense of the peoples of the region. This creates the basis which will allow Azerbaijan to position themselves side-by-side with Iran, Armenia and Georgia. The Azerbaijanization of Iranian culture goes parallel to the process of declaring the monuments of Artsakh as Aghvanian. By Azerbaijanization of Nizami and Aghvanization of Armenian culture of Artsakh, Azerbaijan creates/invents the complex of spiritual and material culture. Accordingly, if looking at the conflict from an anthropological point of view, Azerbaijani policy gradually limits the cultural areal inclusion of Artsakh (in Soviet times, NKAO), and there will come a moment, when Azerbaijan will try to say that the current population of Artsakh is also Armenianized Aghvans.